


somewhere back when we were young

by Anonymous



Category: Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, Implied/Referenced Abortion, M/M, Mentioned parent/child incest, Nothing happens on-screen, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Pre-Canon, Rated for subject matter, Sexual Abuse (mentioned), Sibling Incest, Victim Blaming, these tags are so heavy but it's just talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 06:59:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21471922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: ....I guess something just went wrong.
Relationships: Atli/Torgrim (Vinland Saga)
Kudos: 1
Collections: Anonymous





	somewhere back when we were young

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing explicit here, just trying to work out the necessary environment for something like this to be "mutual" so to speak.
> 
> of course thorgil, 0% brocon but 100% bully, is the most realistic brother-toucher irl

Torgrim, 14 summers tall, is gathering wood in the dappled sunlight at the edge of the forest. Their father always leaves it until too late in the season and he's determined to avoid the yearly ritual of the three of them trooping out to the woods for more, just after it's gotten too cold. He's starting to see that not everything his father does needs to be imitated.

Atli is shorter than him at 13 summers, but he's closing the gap fast. They're both years past their growing pains, but they keep growing. His face is starting to change too, growing longer like Dad's side of the family. They used to be more alike, so much so that Atli had terrible trouble figuring out reflections.

_"Wave your hand," Torgrim says. "Your left one, see? But it was on the right in there. If the you in there turned around, I mean. Reflections are backwards."_

_"No," Atli says, "it **is** his left. Look!"_

_"Because I'm pointing now," says Torgrim, lowering his right hand. "Stupid." None of the fine differences in their features are visible in the water. Their hair might be the same color as they look down into stream from above._

_"You think the me in there understands?" Atli kicks at the bridge rail. "I bet he does. Maybe you should leave me here and go home with him."_

_"Don't be stupid," Torgrim says. "I didn't understand it at first either. You'll figure it out." Atli looks so horribly upset he can't help laughing. "Come on, don't cry. You're not a girl, you know."_

"Brother," Atli says.

It's clear he came here with a goal in mind, but Torgrim can hardly think what it would be. He's told Atli they have responsibilities now, he can't come running to find him every time he gets bored at home.

"I know there's something you've been doing nights."

They've slept cuddled up since they were small. Torgrim's found that more of a bother some nights than others, ever since he started to get taller. He squeezes the wood piled in his arms. "Maybe," he says, guarded.

"I want you to show me. It's something we can do together, isn't it?"

"No," Torgrim says sharply. "It's not." It must be, or he wouldn't feel the need to turn away in their bed.

"I know about babies and all that, but people do something different from animals, don't they? Everyone's talking about it all the time but they don't say anything. I'm sick of not knowing."

"You'll figure it out if you listen to the right people. I did."

"I don't want to figure it out. I want you to tell me."

"If I did," Torgrim says, trying to choose his words carefully, "If I did, it'd be something we don't talk about with other people."

Atli shrugs. "I like talking with you best anyway."

"A big secret, I mean. One we promise not to share. Not ever."

"We've got other secrets," Atli says uncertainly.

"I think this is bigger." The wood's getting heavy in his arms. He puts it down and feels his arm hair prickle. Fear or something else, he can't tell. "The biggest kind of secret you can have."

Atli keeps looking at him and the pit of his stomach feels uncomfortable. He hates feeling caught unawares in front of his little brother.

"No one says it out loud, but I think it's bad," he says. "Animals do it and they don't care, but I think..." He swallows. "I think you don't do it with your family. Even if you can't have a baby. You don't do it."

"But I just want you to show me," Atli protests. "You never showed me anything bad before."

"You know when Runa from the village was going to have her baby," Torgrim says. "And everyone would look at her. And then one day she wasn't going to have a baby anymore. And when she died, her dad finally got married again right after, all sudden-like. There's rules."

"You don't have to be married for a baby," Atli says, 13 years old and sure of everything. "Everybody knows that. They were just jealous of her."

"It wasn't the marriage," Torgrim insists. "It was the father that was the problem. That's why they looked at her like that. But it wasn't him got in trouble. He was the bigger one, you know? It'd be you in trouble, Atli, if anyone found out."

"I only get in trouble when I'm on my own," Atli mutters. He squats in the dirt and looks away from Torgrim, sulking. "I want you to show me. You never show me anything that's bad for me."

"This might be."

"But you won't give me a baby." He laughs. "I know that much. So they can't look at me. There's other stuff that's not about babies. People wouldn't talk so much if it wasn't fun."

"It is fun." Torgrim doesn't want to admit he doesn't know all that much about it himself. "But I think some ways of it being fun... boys aren't supposed to do."

"I liked Runa," Atli says, reflecting. "She was pretty. She can't have done anything so wrong."

"I liked Runa too," Torgrim admits. But it must have been her doing the wrong part, if she was the one they looked at.

_Once, before the bad things start for her, he thinks absently that Runa seems like the type of woman you could marry, even though she's so old. He won't really start to think of women for a while yet, though, and the only thing on his mind at the funeral is that he's never known a woman who died before she got all wrinkly, unless it was with a baby. But Runa's baby never even tried to get born._

_There are plenty of people there now that she can't see them. No one ever proved anything about her, after all. And it's a fine funeral. Lots of things thrown in with her, even a bird they say she'd been fond of. Her father can certainly spare the expense._

_It's not anyone here who did this to her. They say she just faded away. The world had to kill Runa. That's how bad it is, what she did. _

_Men can defend themselves, he thinks, squeezing Atli's hand as the flames take Runa's long hair in a sudden burst. Women have to wither into nothing, or get killed by their own baby, or be sent off to follow their husband when he dies. There are so many things men can do to them, they must have an awful time in battle. If they even go; he's heard tales about that, but he's never seen a girl leave the village and come back with riches and stories of war. He's glad he and Atli are boys._

_Boys can fight back. Or they can be the ones to start the fight._

They're no slouches at fighting, Torgrim thinks to himself. Not either of them separately, and definitely not together. They used to get scolded for bullying, but it's not their fault no one else is like them.

"You'd have to promise me," he says aloud. "You'd have to promise you'll be a man about everything else. The kind of man I can count on for anything. More than Mom or Dad. More than anyone."

"I am a man." Atli grins up at him. "I'm not going to be weak like Runa was."

It's true, he's done a man's work in the fields all summer long. Torgrim's never had reason to be ashamed of his brother.

"It'd be just the two of us afterwards," Torgrim reminds him. "This is a big, big secret."

"It always was the two of us," Atli says. He stands back up and Torgrim realizes again how tall he's gotten. "Until you went and learned this new thing. _You're_ the one dying to share the big big secret. I can tell."

He doesn't much care what anyone else thinks of him. Other people come and go. Their parents will be old someday, and they'll die, but his brother will still be there. It's only Atli who's always there. Not every second, but all the ones that matter.

"We're going to be stronger than the whole world," he says, "after this. We have to be."

"Yeah," Atli says, stepping closer to join him in the shade of the trees. "Of course."

And Torgrim takes his hand.


End file.
